Crypto Restrictions Are Taking Over the World

zeke writes: "An article on SecurityFocus details how forced key escrow and other crypto restrictions have taken root around the world, in countries like France, South Africa, the Netherlands and the UK. Ironically, this leaves the United States -- the birthplace and graveyard of the Clipper Chip -- as one of the few bastions of unregulated encryption."

Comments

And Canada

[Newtonian_p]

Canada is the only developped country in which there are no laws regulating encryption.

That's one of the reasons for which Openbsd is developed there.

Re:And Canada

[gmack]

Actually that's not true. I used to think that as well but then somone pointed me to the laws in question.

We have a specific exemption for open source or free software. Commercial apps still have regulation (although less ornerous than the US)

Re:And Canada

[Anonvmous Coward]

I think the idea is not to thwart, but to provide punishment for it.

I'm playing Devil's Advocate here, I'm not saying it's right. I think the mentality might be along the lines of "Yah well it sure sucks that we weren't able to bust Al Capone on anything but IRS dodging."

It's very possible that they're looking for ways to define 'accomplice'. Let me put it another way: Lots of people were involved in executing 9-11. But besides the hijackers (that died), how can we punish the other people involved? Well, if they used illegal encyrption to communicate, they could be arrested and pulled out of the plan of the next attack.

Again, I'm playing Devil's Advocate here. I'm explaining what their reasoning probably is, I'm not saying that I support it or that it'd even work. I'm saying that I could see some old powerful fart using reasoning like that.

I wonder about e-commerce

[jc42]

The main way that most people use encryption is when they order something from a web site, and the traffic is encrypted to protect credit-card numbers. I've been wondering how well the various restrictive governments police this.

Consider that most users aren't even really aware that they are encrypting their internet traffic. It's done by behind-the-scene transactions between their browser and the remote web site. The user never invokes any encryption software, and never sees the keys.

Will we eventually see cases where a poor baffled user is arrested and charged with illegal encryption, when what they really did was order a pair of socks from llbean.com?

You dont need encryption..

[perlyking]

....when you are being detained as part of the "war on terror" without trial and denied legal counsel.

But yeah there are bad encryption laws in other places like here in the UK. Its worrying.

Re:The UK has less rights than the US?

[MemRaven]

Yeah, I don't think I made my point on that particularly well. I think what I was meaning to say is that in terms of freedom from government intrusion in your privacy, the US has it pretty paranoid-leaning. Partially it's a historical thing in the US, partly it's a cultural thing, but we have the most paranoid culture about government intruding on your privacy without your consent that I can imagine. That's what I was really trying to get at.

Although, I would point out that any nation without an actual constitution or any viable or realistic checks on its Prime Minister can hardly be considered to be a place where you can be guaranteed your rights (as anti-terrorism legistlation passed to try to deal with teh Northern Ireland conflict can attest to).

Now just you hold on there a minute...

[johnlcallaway]

Am I the only one who really read this, or did I not read it right.

I saw places where it said "..and the police can order you to hand over your keys" or '..such and such a company has to register with the officials', but nowhere did it say '...you can't use encryption'. (I do agree that the key escrow stuff is very bad though.)

Just like a gun, ecnryption can be used for good things (hiding my p0rn from my girlfriend), or bad (emailing terrorism plots to agents.) In this country (USA), if the police have enough evidence, they can go to a judge and get a very specific search warrant. So, if they accuse me of having illegal p0rn (instead of just the good stuff), they can search my computer till the cows come home. But if they find a terrorism plot, they can't use that information.

To follow that point, what is wrong with issuing a search warrant and demanding that I decrypt the data?? I may not like it, especially if I'm guilty or don't want to share my p0rn, but I don't see where that is any different than letting the police go through a drug dealers house looking for drugs. Ok...there is that fifth amendment thing, so maybe a law like that couldn't even be enacted in the US.

And so what if company X has to register with the government. They probably had to get a business permit anyway, and if they do anything novel they probably have patents. Not too many companies survive by being secret about their existance.

So...tell me what is all the hub, bub.....